Fallout: Gateway
by specsgaming
Summary: Erin Morgan, a bounty hunter and scavenger, is the best she knows at what she does. When she finds a key to a lost vault, she mistakenly walks into a conflict more extreme than she had ever dealt with before. With the help of her friend, loyal companion, and a weary group of strangers, Erin will learn what it means to be the hunted instead of the hunter.
1. Prologue

**Author's Note: **This is my first fanfic, and I'm highly skeptical about how this will turn out. I'm also very optimistic about this story's success, and I hope you enjoy it. I will also try to do updates as soon as possible. I also want to note that all that takes place in this story has rarely anything to do with any of the released Fallout games.

**Prologue**

A small rodent scurries across the dusty laminated floor of a diner. It approaches the body of a power armored soldier, investigating its owners Pip-Boy 3000A that is linked to their left wrist. Sniffing the piece of old world treasure, the rat is startled by a noise nearby, scrambling away. As it does this, it knocks the Pip-Boy back into life, turning on its radio. The Pip-Boy's radio begins to play "The House of the Rising Sun".

As the Pip-Boy plays the music, we focus on the diner. We see many more power armored soldiers, all dead and covered in blood from various sources, surrounded by other bodies, dressed in armor made of thick-skin leather.

We zoom out of the diner, focusing on the area around it. Rocks scatter the area. In the distance, a large arch is visible in contrast to the beautiful sherbet orange sunset. The diner's sign, which reads "Judy's Roadside Café", is collapsed behind the diner.

As we zoom out even further, we see the ruined skyline of an old pre-war city. Faint gunfire can be heard in the distance, with intermittent miniscule explosions occurring every so often.

As we zoom out a bit further, we see our protagonist: A woman, 5 feet 9 inches tall, blonde ponytail, and dressed in a dark duster. She has an automatic carbine raised, sitting on her shoulder, held in her right hand. The strap dangles. She views the cityscape.

The view turns black.

_War… War never changes…_

_Throughout mankind's existence on Earth, more conflict has been fought by us than by any other species combined, and no other has had as big of an influence on our planet as we have._

_In the late 21__st__ century, the nations of Earth fought to control the scarce supplies of fossil fuels that remained, and as resources drained, the people's needs grew ever more demanding. Each nation had created their own warheads of Armageddon, but needed a reason to use them._

_On the day of October 23__rd__, 2077, after the events of the Resource Wars, mankind had finally found the one excuse it had been looking for. The Earth was blanketed in waves of radiation, killing many, and turning those who didn't die into ghouls._

_In the American Midwest, the warheads fell sparingly, saving the city center of Greater St. Louis from a bath of fire. With this generous gift from the old world, the citizens of the area could now start life anew, and civilize the land around them._

_This led to bounties, and where bounties are placed, those who would seek them are sure to follow…_

_Because though Bounty Hunters may employ tactics of their own…_

_War… War never changes…_


	2. A Message from the Old World

**Chapter 1** – A Message from the Old World

September 5th, 2275

5:24 PM

Viewing the beautiful pink/orange sunset on the horizon, Erin sits in a rusty lawn chair inside her small compound. The 'base' of sorts is surrounded on all sides but one by large train cars that have toppled over, and on the final side by a large concrete wall which supports the long Poplar St. bridge above. Inside the compound, Erin's personal belongings are nicely arranged into rows that are easily distinguishable. Around Erin's torso, her signature automatic carbine is slung by the strap connected to the gun at both ends. Faint gunshots echo in the background.

Erin picks up a bottle of whiskey from the shelf directly adjacent to her. She pulls out the cork, the scent of the old world seeping out of the bottle. She takes a generous swig of the drink and places the bottle back on the shelf.

Erin looks down at her dog, Max, who is lying down next to her. She reaches down and scratches his head, which he, expectedly, enjoys.

"Oh Max, you are so predictable," Erin says, scratching behind his ear. Several nearby gunshots kill the moment.

Erin gets out of her chair and grabs her scoped carbine. She puts the strap around her torso and climbs the ladder to the top of one of the large boxcars, where she has sandbags set for protection. Off in the distance, she sees a man running towards her compound with 4 people in close pursuit firing at him.

"What the hell is this guy doing?" Erin asks herself, looking at the 4 men through her scoped rifle. Three of them appeared to be wearing leather armor, and the last was wearing metal armor that looked heavily reinforced.

The man continues running towards the compound, shouting for help. Erin lays the rifle barrel on the sandbags and takes aim. She puts the crosshair ahead of the man in metal armor, and fires. The high velocity 5.56mm round exits the barrel, and flies downfield into the man head, blasting it into chunks. The three others stop in their tracks, observing their fallen comrade. As they look around, Erin fires another round into the head of the one in the middle of the three.

The other two panic and run back the way they came. Erin decides to not waste the ammo on them, and puts her rifle around her back. She climbs back down the ladder and goes to the front gate.

"Thank you," the man said, exhausted from running, "I'd be dead if not for you."

Erin looks at him. He wore a denim shirt and red plaid jacket, blue denim work pants, and black and white tennis shoes, with a small yellow sack hanging from his belt. He had a holster on his belt that held a single 9mm pistol.

"You're welcome. So what is it that brought you all the way out here?" Erin asks.

"I've got a package for…" He pulls a note out of his pocket, and reads it. "…Erin Morgan? I'm assuming that's you." He unties the little sack from his belt and hands it to Erin through the gate bars.

"Thanks," she says, looking at the small bag. It looked to be made of burlap, but seemed off. She looks back up to the man, but he was gone. Erin walks back to the table she was sitting at before, and sits down. She looks at the sack with curiosity. She unties the knot holding the sack closed, and opens it, revealing a bronze key engraved with the emblem of Vault-Tec, linked to a chain made of simple stainless steel. She observes the key, looking for features that may make it stand out, but fails to find a single one.

Erin looks down at Max, who is rubbing his head against her leg. "Well, Max, I can't find anything about this key," she stops, thinking. "C'mon boy, we're heading out."

Erin grabs her Colt M1911, puts it in her holster on her right leg, and makes for the gate. She opens it, walks through, and closes it. She flips a small, secluded switch, activating her security system. She didn't know what the key was for, but she knew who might.

September 5th, 2275

6:18 PM

Along the banks of the Mississippi River, the small shanty town of Driftwood sits between two large concrete monuments, one of a horse, the other of a man in a fur outfit. Erin approaches the town's main entrance, being greeted by two people, one in U.S. Army combat armor, and the other in thick-skin leather armor.

"Erin!" someone yells from inside the town. He runs up to her and shakes her hand enthusiastically. He was dressed in a greyish-blue outfit, with black shoes, and a mask around his neck.

"Hi Drew. You seem pretty happy," Erin says. She looks at him with a smile.

"You bet. I just got a load of caps from some piece of junk I found. Can you believe it?!" Drew says, holding a large sack in his left hand.

"I'm impressed. Say, have you seen Mikhael around lately?" Erin asks.

Drew points to a large shack down the street to the south. "Yeah, he convinced the mayor to let him sell his stuff from there. Place has been bustling ever since."

"Thanks," Erin says, patting Drew on the shoulder. "Don't spend all your caps in one place. You'll need 'em." Erin walks away towards Mikhael's shop. She enters through the front door, slipping past the mere six people who were there. She walks to the back room, where her friend and mentor Mikhael Mikgelhevik is crouched down, fixing some wiring. He was a tall, strong man, whose face could intimidate a deathclaw. He looks at Erin, who is dwarfed by him, and smiles.

"Erin, it is good to see you, very good indeed. What brings you out here?" He asks her, standing up. His 6 foot 7 inch height was by far his most intimidating feature.

"Hello Mikhael," Erin says, barely managing not to butcher his name's pronunciation, "It's good to see you too." Erin pulls the keychain out a pocket inside her duster, and holds it out to Mikhael. "I was hoping you could tell me what this is."

Mikhael grabs the key and hold it up to his head, looking for anything of interest. After a couple seconds, he places it back in Erin's hand, with a puzzled look on his face.

"I'm not sure what it could be for, but I did notice a small holodisk slot on the big end of the key. You might try talking to Mercer. He knows more about these things than I," Mikhael says, reaching down under his desk. He pulls out a small box of 5.56mm ammunition and hands it to Erin. "Also, these came in for you a couple of days ago, and I had meant to give them to you."

Erin puts the key back in her pocket, and grabs the box of ammo. On the lid it read '5.56mm Devil Tip ammunition'. "Devil Tip? What's that?" Erin asks.

"It is good ammunition, cased for 5.56mm guns. It doesn't look any different than a normal bullet, but it hides under the tip a small dose of *very* lethal poison. One shot is all it takes, and their guaranteed dead," he says, "No charge"

"Seems brutal… Thanks," Erin says, "Well, I guess I'll go and talk to Mercer. See you around, Mikhael." Erin begins to walk out of the store, but Mikhael calls before she makes any forward progress.

"Hey, if you see that damn ghoul, tell him he owes me that rifle. Little der'mo still hasn't given it back."

Erin nods, and turns to leave with Max in tow. If Mikhael couldn't tell her anything about the key, then she knew just who could.

8:03 PM

Across the river from Driftwood looms the rusted shell of the Gateway Arch, an old world monument dedicated to the people and the trek they would make from the east to the west. Nowadays it is still impressive, albeit without its old characteristic glinted metallic shine that lured so many to gaze at it for hours on end.

Erin and Max approach the monument, walking along the old path to the base of the north side of the monument. There she sees her friend sitting next to a door that leads to the basement.

"Erin, it's good to see you again," He says in the same groggy voice characteristic to most ghouls.

"It's good to see you too, Phillip." Erin says, pulling out the keychain. "I hate to get down to business, but I need to know what this is." She holds the keychain out to Phillip.

"Well, well, well… It's been quite a while since I've seen one of those little things," He says, reaching out to grab it. He holds it up to his eye, and looks at it. "Where in the hell did you get this?"

"Some courier risked his ass to get it to me. Never told me what it was for," Erin says.

"Eh, I hate it when they do that. Never pay for dinner either. Well, you're lucky," he says handing it back to her, "It's a key to a vault control console."

"Vault-Tec? Why would they make keys for a vault?"

"Well, Vault-Tec had the idea that if the dwellers liked underground utopia so much they never opened the door, they needed a backup plan. They key is designed to open a certain vault in the area that it was manufactured, so as to not mix them up in shipping."

"So what vault was this one for?" Erin asks, letting him see the key again.

Phillip looks around the key again, and eventually finds what he's looking for. "The key looks like it was created solely for Vault 61, said to be located inside the St. Louis city center."

"Where the hell could it be? City hall? Courthouse?" She asks.

"Nah, but I think I've got a good idea," he says opening the basement door. "It could be a longshot, but I think I've got it."

**Sorry for the wait, but I hoped you enjoyed it. Left a bit of a cliffhanger, but I'm guessing some of you can guess what'll happen next.**


	3. Humanity's Heirs

**My apologies for making this an extremely late chapter, but life really got in the way of this one.**

**Enjoy this chapter, and pray for the next one! :P**

September 5th, 2275 A.D.

8:38 PM

Erin and Phillip walk down the stairs into the basement of the Gateway Arch, which has definitely seen better days. Cracks in the wall, covered with moss and dripping with water. Four inches of water drench their feet as they reach the bottom of the stairs, into a pitch black room. Max stayed behind near the top of the stairs, untrusting of the darkness that loomed before him. Phillip pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket and clicked it on, revealing the secrets behind the shadows. In the distance was a door that looked out of place, set upon a higher platform free of water.

"Is that door where we need to go?" Erin asks. She didn't like the water at all, and preferred to get out of it as soon as possible.

"Yeah, that's the one. Let's go," Phillip says, making his way to the door, with Erin following close by. Erin didn't know why she was friends with Phillip, him being a ghoul and all. The idea of people turning into them was one of her greatest fears, and she rarely ever felt safe around them. Phillip was a strange exception though.

They reached the door, and as Erin looked back to see if Max was still at the staircase, he jumps up on the platform, knocking her into the cold water.

"Agh! Dammit Max," Erin yells, trying to get herself up. She puts her hand on the platform and pulls herself up, which is a strain due in no small part to her heavy combat armor, and the water that was definitely not an added bonus.

"Erin, stop goofing off. This is no place to take a dip in the water. It's not even deep enough," Phillip says jokingly. He looks at her pulling herself up onto the platform. "Did ya find Atlantis?"

"Yeah, you wanna check it out?" Erin asks, drenched in water. She could tell he was trying to be an ass.

"I'm good. We should keep moving. Not much water past this point."

They open the door, revealing a staircase down deeper into the basement. When they reach the bottom, a small room opens up, dominated by a large, gear shaped door on the far side, bearing the number '61'. Next to the door stands a small control panel with a lever and lots of small lights.

"This is it. Vault 61," Phillip says, admiring the large, solid steel door. "Heard about these things before the war, but I didn't think they were real."

Erin looks at the door with a sense of caution. "How much you think it weighs?" she asks, approaching the door. She slides her hand across the cold steel that causes her skin to crawl. She looks at the key in her other hand and then at the control panel.

"Erin, what are you thinkin'?"

"You ever wonder if these things actually did their jobs? If there are people still living on the inside?" Erin walks to the control panel and puts the key into the slot. She turns it, and a small green light flashes on.

"What the hell are you doing? You can't be serious, opening that thing up!" Phillip shouts, his voice echoing throughout the basement room.

Erin turns around and stares at Phillip, cold dead emotion filling her eyes. "These people deserve more than just life secluded from the rest of humanity. If I don't open it, who will?"

"Urgh… What about those Enclave nutjobs? Aren't they all about the preservation of humanity and all that bullshit? Why not let them open it…"

"If I stand by and let the Enclave open this vault, everyone in it will be doomed to die a death with no meaning. I'm opening the vault," Erin says. She turns around and pulls the small lever down, activating the door controls. The alarms begin to go off, blaring one after the other in large, loud blurbs. After several beams of noise, the door begins to slide backwards into the vault. Once inside, it rolls over to the left, revealing the pristine metal inside of the huge fallout shelter. A large hiss sounds the end of the door cycle.

"Wow…" Phillip says, his jaw dropped at the sight of the vault room, "This is incredible."

In the stairwell on the far side, two men dressed in blue jumpsuits and black body armor rush up the stairs, 10mm pistols in their hands, and bullet-resistant glass helmets adorned upon their heads.

"Freeze! Don't you move!" one of them yells. Phillip immediately flips his hands up. They both look at Erin, who stands with her arms crossed. "Hands up," the other shouts at Erin, "I said hands up!"

"You gonna go on with this, or are you gonna let me talk?" Erin says, calmly applying her speech skills.

"Put your hands up and we'll see," the man says.

Erin releases her arms and reaches inside her coat, pulling out a small black pen. "How about this: You let us talk to your leader, and I won't have to kill you both with this ballpoint pen."

One of the men leans over to the other. "I don't think she's kidding around."

"Holster it, Simmons. We'll let her talk. Besides, Harrison will want to talk to them anyways."

Erin puts the pen back into her coat, and proceeds into the vault. Phillip, still shaken by the threat of near death, follows her. "I'm glad we could cooperate," she says to one of the guards as she walks past.

As she enters what she can only assume is the atrium, Erin follows the well placed signs to the Overseer's office. As she walks, vault residents look at her with mild curiosity. This curiosity turns to plain disgust when they catch a glimpse of Phillip.

"What?" he yells, "You act like you haven't seen worse!" The residents back off and continue with their business. Phillip continues to follow Erin, muttering under his voice with the occasional word 'bigot' heard by Erin. The rest of the uneventful walk to the overseer's office was filled with the occasional mutter from Phillip, among other things.

The door opens up to reveal a very neat room with little of the dust and grime Erin was used to from diving into other abandoned vaults. The overseer, who is sitting at his desk, raises his head and greets his visitors.

"Ah, hello. You must be the ones I got the report from Perkins about. Please, take a seat," he says, scribbling something on a paper in front of him.

Erin and Phillip sit down in the chairs directly opposite his desk. Erin was still impressed by how clean the overseer's room was, with his neatly stacked books and very well maintained lockers.

"I've never obviously had the chance to have a conversation like this before. I'm David Harrison, Overseer of Vault 61. Can I help you in any way?" he says, putting his pen back in his drawer.

"Yeah, I wanna know…" Erin says, pulling out the key to the vault control panel, "… how I managed to encounter this. I know it unlocks the vault door, but I want to know what else it can do."

The overseer looks at the key, squinting at times. "Eh… How did you manage to 'encounter' this key?"

"It was given to me by an asshole of which I didn't have the pleasure of meeting," Erin says. The overseer looks at her, then looks at the key.

"Interesting… So, now that you've exposed the vault and everyone in it to the dangers of the outside, what do you plan to do?" The overseer asks, looking out of his atrium window. The residents of the vault walk about in their normal patterns, conversing with one another, and some even helping others out. He looks back at Erin, who is thinking about her next words.

"Well, Overseer, I know that Vault-Tec issued some experiments on most of their vaults. A few less jumpsuits, dimmer lights, that sort of thing," Erin says, putting the key back in her pocket. "I want to know which one yours was. What's so unique about this vault in particular?"

Overseer Harrison looks back down at the atrium, then at Erin again. He then proceeds to pull out a drawer from his desk and pulls out a key not so different from the one that Erin used to open the vault.

"I'll give you credit where it's due, Miss. You know far more about Vault-Tec than I could ever hope to achieve. This vault was subject to an experiment, but it's not one I can explain. I have to show you it." The Overseer stands out of his chair and proceeds towards the door. Erin and Phillip follow him down the winding corridors of Vault 61, down several flights of stairs, to a large hydraulic door. The Overseer puts the key into the wall mounted control panel next to the door, and turns it 180 degrees until the door pops, and slides upward into the ceiling.

Inside the room loom sixteen geothermal power generators, each glowing with the power of the Earth itself. The room, about twice the size of the atrium above, stays constantly lit by the bright lights that signal the generators are indeed working.

"Well, you wanted to see our secret. Here it is," the Overseer states, putting his hands in his pockets.

Erin looks at the generators, then back at Overseer Harrison. "This is incredible. How did they manage to fit them all in a room this small?"

"There are some things Vault-Tec doesn't leave in the instruction letter. This was one of them." He walks towards one of the generators, which hums with the kinetic power stored within. "So, now that you know what makes us unique, what happens now?"

Phillip looks to Erin, and a smug grin shows on his face. Erin has seen this grin on Phillip before, and every time it's appeared it was never in the best interest of everyone involved.

"Phillip… I know what you're thinking…" Erin says, crossing her arms. "The answer is no."

"Aw, come on Erin! These damn smoothskins couldn't care less, and if they're all bigots, then it would work better for my people too." Phillip looks at the Overseer. "Bigots," he whispers.

"No, we're not going to. No matter how many times you beg, we're not doing it." Erin looks at Overseer Harrison. "Don't mind him, he's just grumpy. Well, he's always grumpy, but that's beside the point." Erin approaches the Overseer.

"I believe we've got a plan."


End file.
